Offical Holidays of the Philippines for 2012

Photo grabbed from brownseo.com

How time flies. The year just started and then comes December. And then before we know it, 2012 will be coming with a bang. In a wink of an eye.

To give us an the idea on how do we spend our vacation again for the next year, that is, budgeting our time to jive with the holidays, the Philippine government issued Proclamation No. 295 also known as Declaring the Regular Holidays, Special (Non-Working) Days, and Special Holidays (for all schools) for the Year 2012. Although the proclamation is mainly a guide for schools, the holidays are meant for everyone.

So here is the official Philippine holiday guide for 2012-

Regular Holidays

• New Year's Day - January 1 (Sunday)
• Maundy Thursday - April 5
• Good Friday - April 6
• Araw ng Kagitingan - April 9 (Monday)
• Labor Day - May 1 (Tuesday)
• Independence Day - June 12 (Tuesday)
• National Heroes Day - August 27 (Last Monday of August)
• Bonifacio Day - November 30 (Friday)
• Christmas Day - December 25 (Tuesday)
• Rizal Day - December 30 (Sunday)

Special (Non-Working) Days

• Chinese New Year - January 23 (Monday)
• Ninoy Aquino Day - August 21 (Tuesday)
• All Saints Day - November 1 (Thursday)
• Special non-working day - November 2 (Friday)
• Last day of the year - December 31 (Monday)

Special Holidays

• EDSA Revolution Anniversary - February 25 (Saturday)
• Eid al Fitr and Eidul Adha will be announced as soon as the Islamic community will announce the dates

 If you are doing business here in the Philippines, please take note that some provinces also have their own special holidays. So if you want to transact business in provincial and other local government units, make sure you also know the local holidays.

Meanwhile, plan your holidays now.

Enrico Puno is still standing

“I think that I shall never see
A friend lucky as this Tree.
A Tree who’s twice put to the test
Yet boss won’t let him go and rest.
Blogs are made by fools like me,
But only Noy can save a Tree.”

Enrico Puno (tree in Tagalog, hence, the poem inspired from Joyce Kilmer's above) is Philippines' Interior undersecretary of the Department of Interior and Local Governments who is accused by Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz as a recipient of jueteng (illegal numbers game) payola amounting to eight million (8M) pesos a month. He was supposed to be the overseer of the police during the botched hostage crisis that killed 8 Chinese nationals but was never charged of negligence. He is also the shooting buddy of the president of the Philippines.

More reading: 
Inquirer: I'll not be destroyed by P-Noy critics - DILG usec 

Inquirer: Aquino defends decision to clear Puno in hostage fiasco
The Professional Heckler: 100 

Poem and picture source: The Professional Heckler

I have not learned my lessons

A national government agency has been bugging me.

The story: I have a project with them and it took them several months for the payments to be released so I insisted that I be paid because I was already languishing in poverty. I have no other means of income, so these projects were the ones keeping me sane.

I asked my friends in that office to help me out. After several pleadings and stories of abject need, I was paid through another fund source. I told them we would be having problems when the real check in my name would come because I could not issue a double receipt. They agreed that I issue a receipt when the check comes in and return them the payments.

After months of waiting the check came. I put it in my account and took weeks of verification before I could withdraw the cash. Talk about government bureaucracy. They are lying about those ads telling us there are no more red tapes.

Sigh.

Well, I sent the money to a family member telling them to give it to that national agency. But my family may have also suffered some economic crash they took a part of the lump, without me knowing.

Now I could no longer pay the used money. That is why they have been bugging me. Their treasurer has been sending me messages since day one asking me to pay because they also need the money. Months have passed, and we switched positions.

******

Another office of the provincial government of Bohol has not paid me for a project last July 2009. I designed several materials for a very (note the very) minimal price and until now, almost a year, they have not paid a single centavo. At all.

I was asked to submit my papers. I submitted them. After a leeway of months, they again asked me to submit another document since they said I had other obligations from the provincial government. Every time I go to their office, I have to sign something. No something came out from them. They are still asking me another document and I have stopped doing them.

Since they have another project for me (yeah, I am so dumb and dumber still) they asked another outside office (not a government office, mind you) to pay me in their behalf so I could work on another of their projects. That office gave me cash alright, but charged to me as cash advance. Now I owe money to that office too.

Isn’t it great?

******

I was caught between bloating prices for government transactions and being the honest person I used to be. I know that several companies inflate their prices up to 35% when government agencies procure their services because of delayed payments disguised as government bureaucracy.

Some, if not most, resort to bribery so that payments would come out unexpectedly. Yes, those gallons of ice cream or a bilao of pansit you sent to a certain office so your papers can be fast tracked are pure bribery.

We have not changed at all. Don’t blame me.

******

The staff of these offices have been “hurt” by the blog I wrote about them way back when they also delayed payments they owed me. Yes, these incidents were not the first.

Indeed, I am a fool. When you have no other means of income, even those you know would pay or not has to be accepted in the hope of seeing a bright future ahead.

I am a positive person. Now, blame me.

Corruption in the Philippines: Only the small fish can be fried!

I remember when I was still at the local government of Bohol, the HRMDO always prod me to do my SALN (Statement of Assets and Liabilities) form every year. I have a very little salary and no real estate nor business to brag about, so I always tardy my submission. But still they insisted to the extent of sending official memoranda. 

I've worked hard and anybody from that office could affirm that but government forms were a waste of time. That was why I always question that SALN. No one filled them up seriously. Not even the honorable officials.

Which reminds me of the cases that sprung from not accomplishing the form. And they usually threatened employees with salaries or incomes no bigger than a few thousands. 

Remember Mikey Arroyo (in case you did not know, he is the son of the President of the Republic of the Philippines) bragging about incomes he "forgot" to put in his SALN? No Civil Service Commission came after him. Not even the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Such a sad state indeed. Which brings me to whistle-blowers. Why them too?

The likes of Lozada and de Venecia III who were "pursued by different people" because they opened their mouths and they had a mouthful as their evidence. There was also a female official in the military who claimed funds "donated" by the US of A was misused by the military. And for opening her mouth to whistle and say STOP! she was leveled a graft and corruption case because she was not able to liquidate her 5,000 pesos (or lesser amount, I am not sure) travel expense.

See? It does STINK!

The release of the NBN-ZTE report by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee affirming the bribes and other scandals would surely be just a report. Nothing more. I would be more than happy if it would ever get the attention of the Ombudsman, who, as people have noticed, was not actually working for the benefit of the people.

Meanwhile, the lowly government employees would still fillup their SALN painstakingly for fear of graft and corruption cases.

However, it [Corruption] always means the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Corruption in itself is not a human rights violation, and there is no right to live in a country that is not corrupt or that suffers no corruption. However, corruption does have consequences for human rights:

• It harms the economy and can create or exacerbate poverty.
  
• It destroys democratic government, even if it doesn’t take the very specific form of electoral corruption (hence it violates people’s political rights)
  
• Corruption in the judiciary compromises the rule of law and the effective enforcement of human rights law.

Cartoon and quote from filipspagnoli.wordpress.com

That is why the Philippine government is inutile

According to Inquirer reports, an undersecretary of the country belittles a "mere radio operator" because he claims he knows about bombs.

I laugh. He did not know. They did not know. The Gloria Administration did not know! Even an elementary student with an internet connection knows how to build bombs.

Undersecretary Anthony Golez said that according to military intelligence officers, whistle-blower Vidal Doble had worked as a mere telephone technician at the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp).

"With that kind of job description in their institution, we find it very clumsy for this person to claim that he has knowledge of these things, particularly the making of bombs or any specifics or details on explosives…,” Golez, a deputy spokesperson of President Macapagal-Arroyo, told reporters at a briefing.

Golez added that Doble’s salary level at Isafp could not have allowed for “the kind of information that he has been stating.”

PATHETIC! Mr Undersecretary if you can read this (and I am sure you can't) please click on the following links. If you know what I am talking about.

How to Build an Incendiary Bomb More Powerful Than Napalm

How to Make an Atomic Bomb

Want Some Help Building a Bomb? 

Noodles and Education

I was wondering how come the Department of EDUCATION in the Philippines is UNEDUCATED when it comes to instant noodles. They believed the noodles are highly nutritious thereby approving millions of people's money to feed them to school children.

I thought I was alone.

Here is a letter from an Inquirer reader:

Noodles: a lesson on eating

While many, myself included, were angered by the Department of Education’s controversial purchase of extremely overpriced (by about 400 percent) instant noodles for its feeding program, what I find more outrageous is the fact that the DepEd considers instant noodles a healthful, nutritional alternative supplement for children.

Never mind that 15 million packs of instant noodles were found to contain no egg or malunggay ingredients—thus belying the claims of Jeverps Manufacturing Corp., the supplier of the instant noodles. And how the DepEd officials had not known that instant noodles have a high (and therefore harmful) content of sodium and fat, not to mention MSG (believed to be correlated with obesity, asthma and other health problems) escapes me. In other words, instant noodles are empty foods (or “basura” in the words of my father).

What makes this issue more painful for me is that I have observed in Japan that children are required to eat lunch meals provided in school. The meals are carefully thought-out and prepared by well-trained cooks and dieticians, thus ensuring that there are foodstuffs from all the basic food groups.

One of the Filipina mothers I interviewed raved about how well her half-Japanese child is eating in school. A typical meal consists of a fresh salad, miso (soy product high in protein) soup with seaweeds (high in iron), fish or meat with vegetables and rice, and fruit. The lunch itself serves as a great lesson for the children about the importance of eating right.

If we have P284 million to spend on instant noodles, could we not use the money for more nutritious alternatives?

—SHERILYN SIY

Bohol and Hayden Kho

Who would not know Hayden Kho by this time? Maybe you have seen his videos on the internet. Our government officials did and there is no reason for you to procrastinate.

I was quite moved by the news that the Bohol provincial government declared Kho as persona non-grata. How come?

I used to define persona non grata as an ungrateful person so he is not welcome anywhere. But Wikipedia defines them only as unwelcome persons. It further states that in non-diplomatic usage, calling someone persona non grata is to say that he or she is ostracized, so as to be figuratively nonexistent.

But why should Bohol come to the point of ostracizing a sinner?

According to a news report from Inquirer.net, the provincial government's resolution stated- "We hereby manifest that we detest Mr. Kho's presence and he is not welcome to set foot on Bohol's soil." Uh-oh. That is not so Boholano of them. The lawmakers further stated that they do not want Kho to bring his sexual exploits to the island. Why? Are they sure Kho will evade the limelight in Manila and bring his Haydencam to Bohol and record another sexual encounter? C'mon. Get real.

I am against Kho's taking of videos of his sexcapades and spreading them in the internet (this he deny doing) but being judgmental about him and his wrongdoings is not for us to do. It is like we are saints and he is the only devil in this side of the world. Yeah we are not like him. Yeah we are sinless as anybody else. Yeah Bohol is A PARADISE full of angels and saints. Why let a sinner stain its beautiful beaches and bitches in the guise of cooling off in that God-chosen island?

This is hypocrisy.

The case of Hayden Kho will soon be in court. Why make him the worst person in the world? Why not let that pest out of him defend himself in proper venues?

Samuel Johnson said- Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others those attempts which he neglects himself.

And while the rest of the world are trying to control the swine flu, others testing their military capacity by trying their missiles, the Philippines is busy watching Hayden Kho's sexual videos and debating on them in the guise of in-aid-of-legislation..

"Even coffee, biscuits overpriced"

This is still too early to whine. My gosh, at 7 in the morning? Excuse me for being bitter and weak, but when I opened my news feed, this headline caught my attention- "EVEN COFFEE, BISCUITS OVERPRICED."

That was how Lani Abarquez, the vice mayor of Talisay City in Cebu reacted as she was made to sign purchases from equipments down to biscuits, ALL OF THEM OVERPRICED! I don't know the political career of Ms Abarquez, but knowing all these and made them publicly  just now is quite amusing if not sarcastic.

I've been working with the provincial government of Bohol for ten long years, and overpricing everything the government purchases is not alien to me and even to laborers and down to contractual workers of that institution.The Commission on Audit turns its ugly face on the other side when doing so-called audits.

Why whine?

My theory- Ms Abarquez did not get anything from these overpriced items.

But it is still a beautiful morning though.

I am only hungry so don't mind my babbling

Update 8 Nov 2008: Related topic titled HUNGRY PEOPLE can be read at the opinion page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer/Inquirer.net.

The Philippines is a hungry country. Not for power but for food! Of course there are many of us who hunger for power, but hunger for food is experienced by majority of the Filipinos. Gallup told me that. GMA said otherwise. Ramdam ang kaunlaran, my ass.

I, for one, could not afford to eat three full meals a day. Not because I'm on a diet. I survived drinking free coffee from the printing press where I sometimes go. Believe it or not, there are worst cases around the Philippines.

Why are we hungry? Is it a choice? It is due to poverty? But according to a Gallup study, the Philippines is on top of the hungry nations in Asia. Bangladesh, that country which I believe is worstly affected by a critical food shortage is only 24%, lower than Philippines which scored 64%.

No wonder I always see people with nothing in their minds walking aimlessly in the streets. No wonder there are children asking me food even if I was only eating peanuts. No wonder there are strange happenings that could only be attributed to hunger.

Where are the hunger eradication programs of the government and the non-government organizations?

I am only hungry. Are you?

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Chart taken from a Gallup study. Please click on the link below.

An extensive data collected by Gallup can be accessed here.